In his first year with the Baltimore Ravens, running back Derrick Henry did more than enough to earn a better deal than the $8 million he was due to make in 2025.
On Monday morning, he officially got his reward.
Per a source with knowledge of the terms, here’s the full breakdown of Henry’s new three-year deal, which was signed earlier today:
1. Signing bonus: $11.745 million.
2. 90-man roster bonus: $1 million, fully guaranteed.
3. 2025 base salary: $1.255 million, fully guaranteed.
4. 2026 option bonus: $9.7 million, fully guaranteed.
5. 2026 base salary: $1.3 million, fully guaranteed.
6. 2027 90-man roster bonus: $1 million.
7. 2027 base salary: $11 million.
It’s a two-year, $30 million extension and a three-year, $37 million deal. Of the amount, $25 million is fully guaranteed at signing.
The decision point will come in early 2027, when the Ravens will owe $1 million in a non-guaranteed roster bonus, followed by an $11 million salary. On January 4, 2027, Henry turns 34.
He’s still going very strong beyond his 30th birthday. And he’s showing no sign of slowing down. It made the Ravens willing to replace the $8 million he was due to make in 2025 with a two-year, $25 million commitment that has every penny fully guaranteed at signing.
The Titans did a lot of research on quarterback Cam Ward leading up to the draft and that means they also did a lot of research on wide receiver Xavier Restrepo.
Restrepo caught 69 passes for 1,127 yards and 11 touchdowns while playing with Ward at Miami last season and they got further looks at him at workouts after the season, which gave them even more insight into a player who was an All-American. Restrepo wound up going undrafted after running a poor 40 at the Scouting Combine and the Titans signed him after the end of the seventh round.
Head coach Brian Callahan acknowledged that the 40 time “matters,” but that “you see this speed that he plays with when he plays” and that bought him a chance to make it in Tennessee. Ward believes his college teammate will make the most of it.
“I was real excited when [the Titans] signed X,” Ward said, via the team’s website. “He’s somebody who was deserving of it. He’s worked hard every day. He is one of the most underrated players that was in the draft this year. I think every time he steps on the field, he remembers everything, and he is going to continue to prove it. He was one of the best route runners in college football last year, he is first team All-conference, he is All-American, he never lost in man coverage. He is a back-to-back 1,000-yard receiver, so why wouldn’t you push for him?”
The Titans signed Van Jefferson and Tyler Lockett before drafting a pair of receivers to go with the returning Calvin Ridley, so Restrepo has an uphill climb ahead of him. Chemistry with Ward won’t hurt his bid, though, and preseason action should show how much of a chance he has to stick into September.
The Titans used the No. 1 overall pick on quarterback Cam Ward. Yet, the Titans are one of only three teams not to have a primetime game.
NFL Vice President of Broadcast Planning and Scheduling Mike North explained the league’s reasoning for shutting out the Titans.
“We kind of have this adage that you play your way into primetime,” North told Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports. “You don’t draft your way into primetime. So the Titans are one of the teams that don’t currently have a national television window assigned. But that’s what things like flexible scheduling are for. And if you look down the stretch for the Titans, they play San Francisco in Week 15, Kansas City in Week 16. They’ve got the same opportunity every other team has to play their way into a national window.”
That’s all well and good, but the past two No. 1 overall picks — Bryce Young with Carolina in 2023 and Caleb Williams with Chicago in 2024 — had multiple night games as rookies despite both their teams coming off 7-10 seasons.
The last No. 1 overall pick not to have a primetime game was edge rusher Myles Garrett with Cleveland in 2017.
The last quarterback drafted No. 1 overall not to have a primetime game as a rookie was Cam Newton with Carolina in 2011.
Once upon a time, every team played at least once in prime time. More recently, every team played one — and only one — Thursday game after playing on Sunday.
While it forced fans to hold their noses and watch (or not watch) games like Titans-Jaguars on a Thursday night in December, it created some degree of equity and balance when it came to the demands placed on the various teams.
In recent years, that’s gone out the window. And for good reason. Better prime-time games featuring more attractive teams lead to bigger audiences. Bigger audiences allow broadcast partners to justify the massive rights fees they pay — and it seeds the soil for even larger rights fees the next time packages are available for bidding.
The new approach, with certain teams being overloaded by prime-time and other standalone games and multiple teams (this year, the Browns, Titans, and Saints) being treated like Michael Scott’s neon beer sign, creates a competitive imbalance.
“Certainly the better teams probably end up finding themselves more widely represented in the television windows, and therefore get out of the routine,” NFL V.P, of broadcast planning and scheduling Mike North said during a Thursday conference all with reporters. “The Chiefs, for instance, have been playing five, six, seven prime-time games, playing seemingly every day of the week. It doesn’t seem to have hurt them. So, yeah, that’s what comes with success.
North attributed the dynamic to a “constant balancing act” of “trying to figure out [how to] feed the fans, feed our broadcast partners with the games and the teams they want to see.” He said there’s “always . . . an eye towards competitive inequities, but it doesn’t seem to have hurt to the Chiefs.”
But the selection of prime-time games isn’t only about imposing on the teams that have been good. The process entails making a guess as to whether a team will be good, or at least interesting, regardless of whether the team has a history of playing well enough to deserve the burden.
Last year, for example, the Jets had seven standalone games in the first 11 weeks, including two Sunday-Thursday short weeks. The Jets got the chronically short straw, even though they haven’t been to the playoffs since 2010. At the time, North justified giving the Jets the scheduling business by explaining that the Jets “kind of owe us one” after Aaron Rodgers’s Week 1 season-ending Achilles tear made their 2023 prime-time games far less attractive.
In 2024, Rodgers started every game during the gauntlet, and beyond. And the Jets went 5-12.
This year, the Cowboys have six prime-time games (and a record four Thursday games) despite not making the playoffs in 2024 and, given their schedule, unlikely to do so in 2025. Likewise, a pair of non-playoff teams who aren’t currently regarded as short-list contenders — the Dolphins and Falcons — have been tabbed for FIVE prime-time games each. (Both teams also have an early-morning standalone European game.)
The league apparently is making a bet that Miami and Atlanta will be good. Having six standalone games could help make that a self-defeating prophecy.
The league also expects that the Titans, Browns, and Saints will be not too good. And it will be not bad for them to have the routine and normalcy that comes from playing most of their games at 1:00 p.m. ET on Sundays. (The Browns will play a standalone game in London.)
Two years ago, the Texans played 16 games at 1:00 p.m. ET, before landing on Saturday night for the de facto AFC South championship game against the Colts. Houston parlayed their low profile into a very unexpected playoff berth.
This year, don’t be surprised if the Titans make a run at the same accomplishment. Overlooked and disregarded (just like No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward was during the draft), the Titans can quietly go about their business, stack wins, and get themselves into postseason contention.
And then pay they’ll pay the piper with plenty of prime-time games in 2026. It’ll be better to do it that way, than to play well enough to not make the playoffs, but to catch the league’s eye when it’s time to make out next year’s schedule.
When the NFL schedule is released, the league inherently tells us what it thinks about how well a team may do in the coming year based on how many times it gets featured in a primetime window.
While each team used to play at least once on Thursday night, that’s no longer the case.
For 2025, the Titans, Saints, and Browns each do not have a primetime game.
Of those three teams, only Cleveland will play in a standalone window. The Browns will take on the Vikings in London in Week 5 at 9:30 a.m. ET on NFL Network.
Otherwise, Cleveland has just two games that do not start at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday — a Week 11 home game against the Ravens (4:25 p.m. on CBS) and Week 12’s visit to Las Vegas (4:05 p.m. on CBS).
Tennessee plays all games on Sunday, with five games starting in the late-afternoon window. Of those, just one is in the Eastern or Central time zone, the club’s Week 8 visit to Indianapolis.
The Saints have six games starting in the late-afternoon window, with two of them visits to Seattle and Los Angeles.
With flexible scheduling, any of these three teams could play their way into a primetime slot later in the season.
With the NFL’s full 2025 schedule release on Wednesday, we now know where this year’s No. 1 overall pick will begin his pro career.
Quarterback Cam Ward and the Titans will play the Broncos on the road in Week 1 with a 4:05 p.m. ET start time on FOX.
Ward’s first home game will come the following week against the Rams at 1:00 p.m. ET on CBS, which means Tennessee’s first two 2025 opponents were in the postseason last year.
The Titans are not scheduled for any standalone games in 2025, though they do have two games currently in featured windows. In Week 8, Tennessee’s road matchup with Indianapolis is slated for 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS. Then in Week 15, the Titans’ road matchup with the 49ers is scheduled for 4:25 p.m. ET on FOX.
Additionally, Tennessee’s Aug. 22 preseason matchup with Minnesota will be broadcast nationally on CBS at 8 p.m. ET.
The Titans made several roster moves Tuesday.
The team announced it has signed veteran cornerback Amani Oruwariye and veteran defensive lineman Carlos Watkins. Oruwariye’s agreement previously was reported.
The Titans also claimed linebacker Amari Burney off waivers.
They cut defensive lineman Abdullah Anderson and cornerback Garnett Hollis Jr.
Watkins, 31, spent last season with the Commanders and the Cowboys. Dallas claimed him off waivers on Sept. 18 after he had played one game with Washington, and Watkins was on the field in 15 games for the Cowboys.
He has played 87 career games, with 37 starts, and has totaled 151 tackles, 17 tackles for a loss and eight quarterback hits.
Watkins, a fourth-round pick of the Texans in 2017, has spent time with the Texans (2017-20), Cowboys (2021-22, ’24), Cardinals (2023), Rams (2024) and Commanders (2024).
Burney recently was waived by the Raiders, and the Titans are first in the NFL’s claiming order.
The Raiders made Burney a sixth-round pick in 2023, and he played 24 games the past two seasons, including all 17 games in 2024.
Burney has registered 32 tackles, including three for a loss, and a quarterback hit.
The Titans are adding a veteran cornerback.
Per Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, Amani Oruwariye has agreed to sign with Tennessee.
Oruwariye, 29, spent last season with the Cowboys, playing seven games with four starts. He finished the season with 29 total tackles with three passes defensed.
A Lions fifth-round pick in 2019, Oruwariye has appeared in 61 career games with 40 starts for Detroit, Jacksonville, and Dallas. He’s recorded 27 passes defensed with 10 interceptions.
The Titans have announced a few roster moves on Monday.
The club signed tight end Drake Dabney and receiver TJ Sheffield. Both players participated in Tennessee’s rookie minicamp on a tryout basis.
Sheffield’s signing was previously reported earlier in the day.
Dabney played his college ball at TCU in 2024 after transferring from Baylor. He caught 19 passes for 193 yards last season.
As corresponding moves, Tennessee waived cornerback Virgil Lemons and safety Jerrin Thompson. Both players had recently joined the team as undrafted free agents.
The Titans have elected to add a young receiver to their roster.
Tennessee has signed TJ Sheffield after he tried out for the team at rookie minicamp over the weekend, according to agent Brett Tessler.
Sheffield started his college career in 2019 at Purdue, spending five years with the program. He transferred to UConn for his final season in 2024. He caught 54 passes for 505 yards with three touchdowns last year.
In 59 career college games, Sheffield caught 172 passes for 1,714 yards with 14 TDs.
